What a month!
It was not easy, but I’m glad I did it!
I’d like to re-state the reasons why we did this.
It’s to see what an effect doing Olive Branch classes, twice a week, for a month will do to our bodies while stopping weight training.
We also want to showcase to our followers that we too, suffer and struggle in the classes. We are not superior beings with unlimited fitness capability, contrary to what some people may think (true story). We get tired and weak when subjected to enough push-ups. We gas out and run out of breath when running at maximum speed for a long enough time. And we most certainly feel the stinging pain of lactic acid build up (The pain is actually not caused by the lactic acid produced from anaerobic metabolism but rather the build up of hydrogen ions!).
We completely replaced our weight training routine with strictly Olive Branch classes – twice a week to be exact.
Some of the areas where I predicted minor changes to occur:
- conditioning will improve as both TRX & ACT are highly demanding on your anaerobic and aerobic metabolism;
- decrease in muscle size as the tension on the muscles are not as great compared with weighted dumbbells and barbells;
- decrease on body fat percentage.
What will all these changes look like on the body? We may look a little leaner and a little thinner, with a lower body fat percentage.
And now for the results… drum roll please…
Legend:
HR – resting heart rate
BP – blood pressure
BF% – body fat percentage
Grt – girth in centimetres – sum of 8 points on the body
Wgt – weight in kilograms
SO what does this all mean?
As predicted, our conditioning did improve as indicated by the drop in resting heart rate, and blood pressure. Also a decrease in body fat percentage and in muscle size shown by the girth measurements using a tape measure. And of course, a drop in overall weight which makes sense as both body fat and muscle size went down.
Although, all measurements made a modest change, the change occurred exactly as per my hypothesis and keep in mind that this happened in the course of just 30 days attending only 2 classes per week. That’s a grand total of 6 hours of exercise for the month!
Now before you jump off your seat and rush off to your next high intensity workout, know that both Joe and I worked our butt’s off and pushed ourselves to the brink of passing out – that is a very high level of intensity! Furthermore, we are what’s considered to be classified as fast-responders to exercise stimuli. In fact, there’s even a gene in your DNA that determines whether you’re a fast or slow responder to exercise. Naturally, you will find most athletes and trainers to fall in the fast-responders department and that is due to a very typical but rarely understood concept of survivorship bias.
Without getting into the details (later blog post on this!), know that not everyone responds to a certain amount of exercise the same way. Some more, some less.
So keep your expectations in check, and know that proper exercise paired with a consistent regime will always get you one step closer to healthier, fitter you!
Here’s a quote from Joe himself on his thoughts upon the completion of Call To ACTion:
“As a trainer at Olive Branch, I have lead lots of ACT classes before, nobody is more familiar with the ACT routine than me. However, the few minutes before joining ACT class, my heart begins beating as if I’m entering a competition. It reminds me the time when I did Tae Kwon Do competitions for my school team a few years ago, but this time, my opponents are not other persons but myself. The winner is not the one who gets the highest scores but the one who can endure more pain than others.
So leading up to an ACT class, I usually have enough preparation in advance, including getting a full night’s sleep (very important), and eating healthy foods (if you don’t want to feel sick during the routine).
During the workout, I aways set small goals for each exercise. Before I do the really sucky one — Push-ups, I will tell myself that I will not go down on my knees ever. During the Squats, even though my thighs are burning so hard, I hold “never round my back, keep chest up!” in my mind. I know I am really bad in my Mountain Climbers, so I keep the thought in my mind that when I really can’t suffer the pain, I can keep going for 3 more seconds. Then I will set a goal for my Burpees, to reach 16 Burpees!”